Deferred teleportation or relocation in virtual worlds

ABSTRACT

A user of a virtual universe system is provided with the option of deferring a response to an invitation for an avatar to be relocated (including relocation by performing a teleportation operation) by providing for selective storage of received invitations in a queue with a priority determined based on one or more rules which can preferably be developed by conversion from an invitation. Status of issuers of invitations can be monitored or the issuers polled and the current status can be displayed to a user to determine actions to be taken in manipulating priority in the queue. The user is also provided with the capability of editing priority of stored invitations including the ability to accept, reject or forward the invitation or convert the invitation to a landmark. Invitations having similarities may be grouped in accordance with any desired metadata contained in the invitation. Rules can also be set from the virtual universe system independently of a user in regard to priority and thus provides a new form of advertising.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to the production and managementof interactive virtual universes presented to users on computers linkedby a network and, more particularly, to administration ofrequests/invitations for teleportation or relocation of avatars directedto users.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Closely following the introduction of computer generated graphicrepresentations of objects, computers games have been developed and havebecome popular to the point of becoming a significant industry. Asignificant factor in the continuing popularity of such games maypossibly be the fact that the simulated venue or environment in whichthe game is played is limited only by the imagination of the gamedeveloper and can be presented to a viewer on a display with a realisticappearance which is limited only by the hardware and software employedto render associated images. Moreover, such simulated environments maybe changed at will and very rapidly with rules of the game often beingaltered with the simulated environment. Connection of computers throughnetworks such as the Internet have also allowed interactiveparticipation in the same game simultaneously or at will by numerousparticipants.

As a synthesis of such games with other capabilities of the Internetsuch as interactive chat rooms, advertising and marketing and access tomassive amounts of information and the like, so-called virtual universes(sometimes referred to as “metaverses” or “3D Internet”) have beendeveloped and made available to the public in recent years. A virtualuniverse (VU) is a computer-based simulated environment intended forusers thereof (referred to as “residents” or “agents”) to inhabit,traverse and interact through the use of avatars. An avatar, in thecontext of a VU, is a graphical representation of a user which has anappearance that is freely selectable that the user can control and otherparticipants can see, often taking the form of a cartoon-like humanwhich can move through the regions of the virtual universe representedby 3D graphics and landscapes. Such 3D graphics and virtual landscapesmay or may not resemble the real world in terms of physical laws,building environments, geography and landscapes. Some examples ofvirtual universes available to the public include Second Life® (“SecondLife” is a trademark of Linden Research, Inc. in the United Statesand/or other countries), Entropia Universe™ (“Entropia Universe” is atrademark of Mindark PE AB in Sweden and/or other countries), and There®(“There” is a trademark of Forterra Systems, Inc. in the United Statesand/or other countries). Examples of massively multiplayer online gamesinclude EverQuest® (“EverQuest” is a trademark of Sony OnlineEntertainment, LLC in the United States and/or other countries), UltimaOnline® (“Ultima Online” is a trademark of Electronic Arts, Inc. in theUnited States and/or other countries) or World of Warcraft World ofWarcraft® (“World of Warcraft” is a trademark of Blizzard Entertainment,Inc. in the United States and/or other countries). Publically availablevirtual universes and/or massively multiplayer online games are operatedby persons or companies who provide servers to generate portions of theVU and which may impose a charge for participation as a resident, toestablish a particular object or environment (sometimes referred to asan “island”) within the VU, present advertising and the like orcombinations thereof.

In short, an avatar controlled by a resident can interact with otheravatars, objects and portions of the immediate environment of the avatarin much the same way a person would interact with other persons, objectsand portions of the environment in the real world, but wheretransportation or relocation of an avatar between portions of the VU maybe nearly instantaneous (e.g. referred to as “teleporting”) and objectsand local environments within the VU may be entirely developed at willto resemble the real world closely, not at all or with any degree ofrealism or fantasy in between which may be provided by the administratorof the VU or users of the VU, often for a not insubstantial fee.

A user may relocate a corresponding avatar to any location or island ofwhich the user may be aware or may find during a search; maintaininglocations of particular interest as “landmarks” which are largelysimilar to “bookmarks” on the internet. To increase such knowledge andprovide for communication or shared experiences with other users,through their avatars, invitations can also be issued by a user torelocate or teleport their avatar to particular locations. However, asthe use of virtual universes becomes more popular, notifications tousers of the issuance of such invitations, usually accomplished using apop-up window, can be numerous to the point of causing interference withthe virtual universe experience of the invitation recipient while someinvitations may require an immediate response.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a systemfor managing teleportation/relocation invitations, particularly toaccommodate needs and preferences of a user.

In order to accomplish these and other objects of the invention, amethod is provided for performing or causing performance of steps oflogically analyzing an incoming teleportation invitation on the basis ofat least the sender and proposed teleportation location, and responsiveto results of said logically analyzing step, automatically performingone of accepting the invitation, rejecting the invitation, and deferringresponse to the invitation by placing the invitation in a queue at aqueue location having a priority based on the logical analysis.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a virtual universesystems provided including comparators for comparing metadata in aninvitation to a plurality of rules, storage for containing a queue ofthe invitations, an arrangement for storing an invitation in the queuewith a priority determined in accordance with a rule, and an arrangementfor manipulating priority of teleportation invitations, accepting andinvitation or rejecting an invitation stored in said queue whereby aninvitation may be deferred.

In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, a method ofadvertising using a virtual universe system is provided including stepsof logically analyzing an invitation in accordance with a rule,deferring response to the invitation by storing the invitation in aqueue with a priority specified in a rule from the virtual universesystem.

In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention, a computerprogram product is provided comprising a computer readable medium or acommunication link supplying signals comprising a computer program, saidcomputer program, when run on a computer, causing said computer toperform: logically analyzing an incoming teleportation invitation on thebasis of at least the sender and proposed teleportation location; andresponsive to results of said logically analyzing step, automaticallyperforming one of: accepting the invitation, rejecting the invitation,and deferring response to the invitation by placing the invitation in aqueue at a queue location having a priority based on said logicallyanalyzing step.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, aspects and advantages will be betterunderstood from the following detailed description of a preferredembodiment of the invention with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a high-level block diagram or data flow diagram of anetwork-based virtual universe,

FIG. 2 is a similarly high-level block diagram of some details of theclient 120 and server 110 generally provided for participation in avirtual universe,

FIG. 3 is a high-level block diagram (which can also be understood as adata flow diagram) of a processing architecture useful for understandingthe principles of the invention in accordance with a preferredembodiment thereof,

FIGS. 4A and 4B are representations of an invitation dialog window inaccordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention,

FIG. 5 is a representation of a preferred teleportation invitation queuein accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention,

FIG. 6 is a preferred dialog box or interface screen for controllinggrouping of teleport invitations,

FIG. 7 is a preferred dialog box or interface screen for forwardinginvitations and splitting groups of invitations,

FIG. 8 is a dialog box or interface screen for adding new teleportinvitation prioritization rules,

FIG. 9 is a preferred landmark administration console interface screen,

FIG. 10 is a preferred teleport administration console for settingautomatic invitation acceptance/rejection, user notification andprioritization defaults,

FIG. 11 is a state diagram useful for conveying an understanding of theoperation of a preferred embodiment of the invention in accordance withits basic principles and the interrelationship of the interface screensor dialog boxes of FIGS. 4-10, and

FIG. 12 illustrates a suitable processor architecture for use as aserver or client in FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the drawings, and more particularly to FIG. 1, there isshown a high-level diagram of a network implementing a virtual universe(VU). FIG. 2 is a similarly high-level block diagram illustratingfunctional relationships between a client terminal and a serverimplementing a VU and between which network 105 may or may not beinterposed. FIGS. 1-2 are principally arranged to facilitate anunderstanding of the overall general operation of a virtual universe anddo not and are not intended to represent any particular knownimplementation of a VU. Further, at the level of abstraction with whicha VU is represented in FIG. 1, the VU illustrated may or may not includethe invention and no portion of FIG. 1 or 2 is admitted to be prior artin regard to the invention. It should also be borne in mind that VUimplementations have become relatively sophisticated and the underlyingtechnology relatively mature such that enhancements thereto, such asthose provided by the present invention, must be interoperable withexisting network and VU infrastructure.

It should also be recognized that operation of a VU is extremelyprocessing intensive and, while large amounts of computing resources maybe accessible through a network, graphics generation and rendering mustbe distributed and managed in such a way as to provide images ofportions of the VU in a very short period of time in order to beacceptable to residents of the VU, particularly in regard to updatingviews as avatars are manipulated and as teleportation between islands ofthe VU occur. Further, substantial portions of the control of avatarsmust be automated in order to keep the manipulation effort required of aresident within reasonable bounds while providing meaningful andreasonably logical and realistic interactions with environments, objectsand other avatars. Thus, each environment/island, object and avatar mustbe personalized (e.g. have a personality, properties, includingownership and the like) as well as many properties and attributes (e.g.behaviors and defaults) which must be transmitted efficiently, generallyas metadata, between potentially a large number of processors whichperform the rendering thereof and the rendering distributed in some formto the terminals through which residents interact with the VU.

More specifically, as illustrated in FIG. 1, the overall network andsystem 100 will be recognized as substantially the same as that of theInternet. Other functional elements such as firewalls, proxies and thelike may be included for purposes of security, reliability and the likebut are not important to the successful practice of the invention.Network 105, such as the Internet, provides communications between allVU servers 110 a-110 d and at least one virtual universe server 115which establishes the basic VU topology, characteristics, rules and thelike and maintains membership and billing information in regard toresidents (users). Clients 120 a-120 d are essentially user terminalsand may communicate with the network 105 and VU server 115 eitherdirectly or through a VU server although that distinction is unimportantto the practice of the invention, as well.

In the following discussion, the term “rendering” will be used to denotethe entirety of processing performed on the definitions of landscapes,environmental features, avatars and/or objects as contained in metadatain order to produce signals which can be used to drive a display toproduce a graphical image. Such processing will, for example, includeprojection of the location of an object in the virtual environment to alocation in a two-dimensional representation from a particular viewingpoint, positioning and orienting geometric coordinates of graphicprimitives approximating environment features, objects or avatars orparts thereof, making hidden line calculations, generating surfacetextures, generating lighting and shading effects and their interactionsbetween objects and the like to construct a scene and, as such,constitutes a substantial processing burden. As a practical matter inview of current communications bandwidth constraints, distribution ofprocessing power and storage over a network, hardware and softwarecompatibility and issues of data transmission delays and latency, someaspects of scenes are usually constructed at a server and transmittedover the network as positions, graphics primitives and geometriccoordinates (sometimes referred to as a pre-image) while hidden line andsurface computations, generation of textures, lighting and shadingeffects and the like for final image presentation (which arewell-developed and routine processes that can be performed on relativelyinexpensive hardware such as a graphics card) are generally performed onsuch hardware in a client processor. However, the location where therendering process or portions thereof are performed is not important tothe practice of the invention while the critical aspect of rendering forVU performance is the overall processing load the entire process imposeson a VU system, particularly when teleportation is performed.

Referring now also to FIG. 2 the nature of communications generallydepicted in FIG. 1 will be explained in greater detail but also with adegree of generality since many variations thereof may be employed. Itwill be readily understood by those skilled in the art that rendering ofislands, avatars, objects and the like is perhaps the most processingintensive aspect of a virtual universe as well as being the mosttime-critical for performance which is acceptable to the user. Hardware,software and firmware for performing a convenient portion of renderingis generally resident in each VU server 110 and the virtual universeserver 115 but may be present to some degree (e.g. a graphicsco-processor) at a client terminal 120 as depicted by dashed line 210and parentheses in FIG. 2. In general, the servers 110, 115 will havethe capability of arbitrating the most convenient/available location forthe portion of the rendering performed on a server to be done mostexpeditiously. For example, when a rendering of a scene is required at,for example, client 120 a for interaction of a particular avatar with anobject while changing location on an island, the rendering (includingocclusion or hidden line processing) could be performed at the client,local server 110 b or distributed over any or all of servers 110 a-110 dAnd possibly even including some client terminals (e.g. 120 b) havingrendering capability depending on rendering complexity (e.g. requireddetail) and current processing loads of VU servers and clients. Itshould be appreciated that plural avatars for plural residents/users maybe present in the same environment and that a different point of viewmay be required for the rendering presented to each resident/user.

Thus, the graphics to be presented to a user may be transmitted as arendering or partial rendering to the network or a local client from aserver (e.g. as primitives and geometric coordinates or even compressedvideo or graphics primitives which may or may not be further modified ata local server or client processor) or, if rendering of avatars, objectsor islands resident on a particular server are to be performed onanother processor, attributes such as the identity, physical laws,graphics definitions (e.g. primitives), etc. of an island, the identity,properties, graphics definitions, etc. of an object and/or personality,ratings, graphics definitions, etc. of an avatar are stored, preferablyas metadata in servers 110 and transmitted as such to the processorwhich will actually perform the rendering and retransmission of thegraphics. It should be appreciated that such attributes will be eitherconstant or only infrequently or slowly changing and thus would beimpractical and distracting to specify with each avatar command but canbe automatically transmitted and retransmitted between serversautomatically, as needed, with avatar commands, controls and/orcommunications specified by the user/resident.

It should also be appreciated that client 120 will have appropriatecontrols and communications facilities (which are not generallyhardware-dependent but can use available hardware interfaces such as akeyboard, mouse, camera, microphone or the like) collectively depictedat 225 of FIG. 2 which will preferably be resident on the clientprocessor. In order to create islands, objects and avatars, somearrangement for doing so, preferably a graphic user interface (GUI)which may be in the form of one or more screens (possibly nested)functioning as a console 230 a-230 c may also be resident but arepreferably downloaded from virtual universe server 115 through the localserver. Such consoles allow particular attributes (e.g. locations,properties, personalities, graphics definitions and the like) to bespecified and which are thereafter stored, preferably on an associatedserver 110 as depicted at 220 a, 220 b and 220 c for islands, objectsand avatars, respectively. Similar GUIs 240 a-240 c are also provided(but preferably resident on the client processor) for control of thecurrent island, object and/or avatar, once it has been created. Suitablearrangements for providing GUIs or consoles 230 a-230 c and GUIs 240 areknown and others providing enhanced user/resident convenience isforeseeable. The current island (220 a) with its associated objects (220b) correspond to the current location of the current avatar (220 c) andare thus the object of teleportation or relocation invitations to whichthe present invention is directed for management thereof as will now bediscussed.

Some definitions which will be helpful in the following discussion are:

1. Avatar—an avatar is a graphical representation the user/residentselects that others can see, often taking the form of a cartoon-likehuman but which can be produced with any degree of detail, whether realor fanciful;

2. Agent—an agent is the user's account, upon which the user/residentcan build an avatar and which is tied to an inventory of assets the usercreates and/or owns;

3. Region—a region is a virtual area of land (e.g. a portion of anisland or an environment associated therewith, such as an interior spacein a building) within the virtual universe which typically resides on asingle server;

4. Landmarks—a landmark is a map location that can be saved by a userand typically comprises a name and a map coordinate within the VU;

5. Friend/contact—a friend or contact is another user/resident of the VUwhich is maintained in one or more lists which allows a user to see whenfriends or prior contacts are online and provides a mechanism forcontacting them directly using tools available with the list. It shouldalso be appreciated that assets, avatars, the environment correspondingto a location and anything else visible in the virtual environmentcomprises universal unique identifiers (UUIDs) tied to geometric data(preferably distributed to users as textual coordinates), textures(preferably distributed to users as graphics files such as JPEG 2000files) and effects data (preferably rendered by the user's clientaccording to the user's preferences and user's device capabilities butcould be otherwise rendered as discussed above).

Virtual universes may be traversed by such methods as walking, flying orteleporting. Generally, walking and flying provide for traversal ofareas within an island while teleporting provides a mechanism to travelrapidly from one VU location to another VU location even if thelocations are geographically (e.g. in the context of the topology of aparticular VU) far apart or even in different virtual universes. Asindicated above, a user can teleport to any other location of which hemay be aware. However, since a major feature of virtual universes is toallow avatars of different users to interact as well as to increase userawareness of additional locations that may be of interest, one user mayissue an invitation to another user in the form of an offer ofteleporting an avatar of the recipient from the current location of therecipient's avatar to another location. Known systems allow a recipientto accept or reject the invitation/offer of teleporting. If accepted,the avatar of the recipient is teleported from its current location to alocation corresponding to the invitation/offer.

As alluded to above, a VU may be quite busy at any given time withpossibly thousands of users and friends logged on at any given time.Therefore, it is likely that any given user may receive many invitationsfor teleportation with relatively high frequency. Since such aninvitation may involve both a particular issuing user (who may or maynot be a previous friend or contact) and a location (with which therecipient user may or may not be familiar), immediate acceptance may notalways be desirable and some consideration of whether to accept orreject a particular invitation may be desirable but may, nevertheless,present an undesirable interruption to the recipient user. Additionally,the use of pop-up windows as a typical, known form of alerting therecipient user of an invitation may clutter the user's screen anddistract from or even preclude the recipient user's current activity.Therefore, users may desire the additional choice of deferring aninvitation to a more appropriate time as well as a less intrusive methodof being alerted to the issuance of an invitation; a facility which isnot currently available in the art but is provided by the presentinvention. Further, there is no currently available arrangement forprioritizing or otherwise administering invitations. In this regard,prioritization is particularly important in business applications whereteleport invitations may represent system event notifications which mayrequire immediate attention of the recipient/user while others may beentirely discretionary or unrelated to the business application. Thatis, in addition to the present capability of accepting or rejectinginvitations, additional capabilities of deferring acceptance orrejection of invitations, saving and prioritizing the deferredinvitations in a queue which may also be reordered by a user, andforwarding an invitation to another friend or user are thus desirable.Further, the ability to set up default priorities based on invitationsenders and invitation type or invitation location which may beadministered in accordance with particular rules (which may be automaticor managed by an agent to reduce the need for users to actively set uppriorities) may also be desirable.

Referring now to FIG. 3, a high-level block diagram of the basic systemof the invention is illustrated. It should be understood that the systemarchitecture illustrated in FIG. 3 is exemplary and organized tofacilitate understanding of the principles of the invention and, at thelevel of abstraction illustrated, can also be understood as aninformation flow diagram.

An invitation 310 specifying a user and a proposed teleportationdestination is input to, for example, a register 320 arranged to receiveand temporarily hold these parameters (and possibly others) of theinvitation from which they may be directly displayed, if desired, in amanner similar to that illustrated in FIGS. 4A and 4B. The communicationfor such direct display is depicted by dashed line 325 in FIG. 3.

In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention, anarrangement 330 for storing user preferences for automatic invitationadministration is provided. Any non-volatile storage medium (e.g. a harddrive) is suitable for the purpose. The user preferences stored thereinmay be regarded as user-selectable defaults since they may be changed atwill and may be manipulated and/or overridden through the use of theinvitation queue administration console 250 b as will be discussed ingreater detail below. In essence, the user may enter particular friendsor contacts and potential teleportation location information intostorage locations (e.g. registers or storage fields from which they areprovided to logic 340 to which the current incoming invitationparameters are also provided from storage 320 in order to logicallyanalyze the incoming invitation based on at least the sender and theproposed teleportation location. Logic 340, depicted as a comparatorarray for clarity and as a representation of its basic function, isintended to represent any type of logic which is capable of applyingrules in accordance with user inputs to received invitation parametersand, when a particular rule is satisfied by the invitation parameters,to transfer the invitation information from storage 320 to causeimmediate invitation rejection response as depicted at 350 or to deferthe invitation and place it in an appropriate region of invitation queue360.

(As a perfecting feature of the invention, a portion of the queue or anoutput of logic 340 can also correspond to an option of immediate andautomatic teleportation for selected invitations, as depicted at 355 ofFIG. 3. For example, some friends or contacts may represent parties orlocations or combinations thereof to which there is a business-basedobligation, such as user agreements, marketing agreements orpredetermined user responsibilities, to respond immediately or within alimited period of time, as indicated by the parenthetical legend“(Business)” in partitions of storage 330. That is, as a perfectingfeature of the invention, a portion of the queue or an output of logic340 can also correspond to an option of immediate and automaticteleportation for selected invitations, as depicted at 355 of FIG. 3.)

“Business” designations can be implemented, for example, with flags ondata or combinations thereof. For example, a friend/contact who might beassociated with a business with which the user had business obligationsmay be so marked as a business friend/contact but different rules may beapplied by logic 340 depending on whether the location specified in aninvitation parameter in storage 320 corresponded to a location instorage 330 which was also flagged as a business location and/or if thefriend/contact and location were both associated with the same business.That is, if both the friend/contact and location have “business” flags,an immediate response may be required whereas a lesser priority in queue360 may be assigned if only one were flagged, for example, for abusiness contact where a non-business invitation location may indicate asocial nature of the invitation. On the other hand, some locations thatmay be landmarked as high priority business locations may indicate ahigh priority is warranted or immediate response is required while otherlandmarks may be specified or flagged (with an alternate flag) forunconditional invitation rejection.

It should also be noted from FIG. 3 that the invitation administrationrules which may be established at the will of a particular user on logic340 through invitation administration console 250 a may provide full (orany lesser degree of) flexibility to a user in the priority which willbe automatically assigned to an incoming invitation. The output(s) oflogic 340 may also control the type of notification, if any, provided toa user when an invitation arrives. For example, if an incominginvitation is found to satisfy rule 1 it may be identified as requiringan immediate response and a full dialogue window display as illustratedin FIG. 4A or 4B may be provided on display 380 under control ofnotification and display control 370. For invitations which areestablished by the user to be of lesser urgency, a notification oflesser intrusiveness such as a menu or button of small area may bedisplayed instead of a larger dialogue window or the receipt of aninvitation announced with an audible indication (385) that may be variedin volume, frequency or other parameter (e.g. voice synthesis) toindicate relative urgency or lack thereof.

Such facilities provided in accordance with a preferred embodiment ofthe invention have special utility when teleportation invitations aresent not only from other human users of the VU but by agents, such asmonitoring agents for data centers. In such cases, different aspects of,for example, a data center (e.g. cooling systems, disk drives, networks)may inundate a user with invitations related to hardware or softwaremonitoring if connected to a VU representation. The user may wish todefer responses thereto and/or have these invitations preliminarilyplaced in a default or pre-specified order by the invention inconnection with which various possible criteria (which may also berepresented by flags or the like) in connection with the issuing agent,location or both as well as the urgency of the condition which can beindicated in the invitation by, for example, minor modification of theissuing agent or location designation such as application of analphanumeric extension thereto which may be accommodated by differentbut corresponding entries in storage 330.

In this regard, it should be understood that the contents of theinvitation queue can be viewed and manipulated by the user at any timeby simply invoking invitation queue administration console 250 aresulting in a display similar to that of FIG. 5 which will be discussedin greater detail below. Thus, if numerous invitations from an agent arereceived in a short period of time (and which may be identified as suchby a distinctive audio tone or the like), the user may view the queue atany time or wait for the frequency of invitations to diminish and thenview a preliminarily prioritized list of such invitations from theinvitation queue 360 from which the invitations of that class which willbe prioritized within a contiguous group within the queue 360 (e.g. byreceipt time, urgency or the like or a combination thereof), manuallyreprioritize the portion of the queue or simply pick locations to whichteleportation is accepted or, if, for example, a plurality ofinvitations are apparently urgent, forward the invitation to anotheruser who may respond to it as depicted at 375. In this regard,invitations in the queue will be prioritized in accordance with therules implemented in logic 340 but many sorting tools can also beprovided in the invitation administration console, such as identifying agroup of invitations resulting from application of a particular rule orgroup of rules (e.g. as may be the case of invitations received from aparticular agent or group of agents) and sorting within that group ofinvitations based on any of a number of criteria or combinations orhierarchy thereof which may be deemed useful and which will be apparentto those skilled in the art in view of this description of theinvention.

Thus, in summary, the high level steps for operation of the preferredembodiment of the invention are:

1. an invitation to teleport is received by a user/invitee;

2. the teleport invitation can be deferred (queued), accepted (forimmediate teleportation), rejected/canceled, forwarded to another useror saved as a landmark (e.g. as if the user had already visited thelocation) for possible future reference;

3. when a queue has been formed (e.g. more than one invitation has beendeferred), the user can select an option such as “accept next invitationin queue” and accept teleportation to the next invitation in the queue(which the user may do after reordering invitations manually to groupteleportation invitations by area or proximity to each other or inaccordance with other criteria); and

4. the user may establish preferences for how teleportation invitationsare automatically prioritized and managed. In steps 3. and 4., thesystem provides prioritization in several different ways:

-   -   a. manual—the user may manually alter the priority of teleport        invitations either with or without automatic prioritization.        That is, the user may selectively disable logic 340 and specify        priority for each invitation as it is received or the logic 340        may be arranged to simply assemble the queue of invitations in        the order received such that the user may manually prioritize        them at a convenient later time as an alternative to manually        reordering the preliminary order established by logic 340 when        logic 340 is set up to express user preferences.    -   b. user preference—the system can be configured, principally        using logic 340, to allow users to predetermine prioritization        based on the order in which the invitations were received (e.g.        with oldest or most recent given highest priority), by sender        (e.g. friends or business flags first), or by location (e.g.        business flags or landmarks first) or a combination or ordered        hierarchy of these criteria.    -   c. system preference—the VU and systems contained in the VU may        set the priority for an invitation based on user agreements,        marketing arrangements, predetermined user responsibilities that        require a particular response to a particular system event or        even based on such considerations as processing loads at        particular servers of the system. System preference may be        implemented by setting one or more rules in logic 340 from the        system rather than at the will of the user as described above.        Thus, for example, when a qualifying event occurs, the user may        be automatically teleported to the specified location to respond        to the event (e.g. invoking auto-teleport 355). Thus the system        provides for maintaining and deferring selected teleport        invitations while avoiding distraction from a clutter of        invitations appearing on the VU display screen as well as        providing for both manual and automatic prioritization of a        user's collection of invitation requests while preserving        immediate notification and automatic acceptance of invitations        of sufficiently high priority as determined by either the user        or the system.

Invitations can be sent by any user, friends, group administrators, VUenvironment managers or system agents that perform event notifications.Other than for system preferences, described above, the user can choosehow all of these invitations are handled from a preferablysoftware-based invitation administration console 250 a for settingdefault values for invitation alerts/notifications and prioritysettings. Alerts may include a pop-up dialog box, a small andunobtrusive button, any of a plurality of audible signals or nonotification at all, depending on the priority initially assigned to anincoming invitation. The user can also select between teleportationoptions of immediate auto-teleportation 355, placing the invitation inqueue 360 in a predetermined order or automatic rejection of all orselected invitations. The console 250 a also provides the ability to setpriorities among invitations in accordance with time, sender and/orlocation by configuration of logic 340 and/or to accept or rejectinvitations on the same basis.

The operation of the invention by a user will now be described toindicate the broad flexibility for deferral and administration ofteleportation invitations which may be made particularly convenient byuse of the preferred interface screens depicted in FIGS. 4A-10 whichwill be described in turn. It will also be of assistance in obtaining anappreciation of this convenience and flexibility provided in accordancewith the invention to follow the state diagram provided in FIG. 11 inwhich the principal functionalities of the invention may be controlledby a user. It should be understood, however, that some minorfunctionalities and those available from known VU systems may be omittedfrom FIG. 11 in the interest of clarity but which are, nevertheless,depicted in the representations of the preferred interfaces. Additionalfacilities and functionalities will be apparent to those skilled in theart and can, of course, also be included without departing from thespirit and scope of the present invention.

If, upon receipt of an invitation (1100 of FIG. 11) the notificationselected for all or selected invitations is a pop-up dialog box asdepicted in FIGS. 4A and 4B (1105 and 1105′ of FIG. 11) with otheroptional notifications (indicated, for convenience and clarity, in 1105)which differ only by an error or information icon to provide informationto the user in regard to the type of invitation that has been receivedand whether or not an existing rule allows automatic prioritization, ispresented with invitation information. Option buttons are alsopreferably presented which allow the user to accept the invitation (e.g.teleport immediately), defer and queue the invitation, reject theinvitation, save the invitation as a landmark or forward the invitationto another user or, possibly, if the interface screen of FIG. 4B ispresented, extract a new rule therefrom for prioritization of futuresimilar invitations by, for example, conversion of the metadata of theinvitation to a logical expression. This dialogue window can thusparallel the function of the invitation administration console if theuser selects the indicated disposition of invitations from the samesender and location should be stored as a default. This feature of thepresent invention can be very useful if applied to new combinations ofsender and location since it can establish a rule in logic 340 forsimilar invitations very quickly and with a minimum of user effort.

Users that elect to defer teleport invitations (1110 of FIG. 11 whichwill return to the stand-by state 1199 of FIG. 11) can then optionallyuse the invitation queue administration console 250 a (1115 of FIG. 11),an exemplary interface screen for which is shown in FIG. 5, to set ormodify priority of invitations in the queue represented by a sequentiallist 510 of received invitations. This may be performed by any suitablecursor control such as cursor keys, mouse, track-ball, touch pad or thelike to select a particular invitation or grouped/composite invitationsand then select a disposition (e.g. move up, move down, forward, addlandmark, reject, group or ungroup) using on screen buttons 520 whichmay be activated by a similar “Priority Settings” button among on screenbuttons or the like 530 which may also be used directly to accept asimilarly selected invitation or to include a particular user in rule Nof FIG. 3. Other on screen buttons 540 may be used to confirm theoperation so selected, to “cancel” and exit the interface screen of FIG.5 or to “apply” the manipulation by storing the manipulation withouttaking action on it. To assist the user in the choice of action to betaken from this interface screen, indicia 550 and key thereto 560 areprovided to inform the user of the status of the issuer of theinvitation which will generally be important to the action the userwishes to take in regard to a deferred invitation.

The automatic prioritization set by the user can be overridden insituations where the user has agreed to obligations and responsibilitiesto respond immediately or within a limited period of time.Alternatively, such invitations may be automatically detected bysettings of logic 340. Reminders to review the queue may also beincluded when any such invitations are stored therein by setting a timefor such reminders corresponding to the required response time innotification control 370. Also, in a manner similar to the function ofmonitoring agents or system priorities described above, user-establishedpriorities may also be overridden by business agents who pay a fee to VUproviders to issue (e.g. high priority) invitations to locations ofbusiness agents and thus constitutes a new form of advertising model forthe VU. Similarly, priorities in a user's queue could be altered by thesystem (e.g. by the VU system administrator or from the VU server 115)for the same purpose (e.g. a business could pay a fee to a VU providerto have its teleport invitation(s) have a higher priority thansimilar/competitor invitations).

The system in accordance with the present invention may also use otherautomatic criteria for determining invitation priority such as byautomatically grouping all invitations in a particular area of the VU orby similarities of metadata or other information concerning invitationlocations or senders. It is also desirable for priorities of importanceto the sender to be reflected in the ordering in the queue which can beaccomplished in much the same manner as setting importance flags fore-mail or in other ways which will be apparent to those skilled in theart.

During manual manipulation of the queue, a user may reject invitationsby simply removing them from the queue and may also save invitationswithout regard to priority by removing them from the queue whilecreating corresponding landmarks. It is also preferred for a rejectedinvitation to be maintained, at least temporarily, in a rejected queueto allow them to be restored if desired or accidentally rejected. Thesame mechanism can be applied to return an invitation stored as alandmark to the queue 360 with any desired priority.

As shown in FIG. 5, it is desirable to inform the user of the status ofthe sender of an invitation in connection with use of the invitationqueue administration queue console. This function may be provided bypolling of queued senders as illustrated at 390 of FIG. 3 and allows theinvitee to determine if the sender is not currently online or isotherwise unavailable during selection of a deferred invitation toaccept. Conversely, if a sender is not available when convenient for auser to accept the invitations (e.g. over a period of time) the user mayelect to reject the invitation.

It is desirable that the user be able to select a “next teleport” optionto teleport the user's avatar to the highest priority teleportdestination location in the invitation queue or in a group ofgrouped/composite invitations at virtually any time during the VUsession. However, it is important that the state of the queue not be inany way ambiguous and therefore that option is preferably not providedon the invitation administration console if any such ambiguity ispossible. Rather, this operation is depicted at 1120 of FIG. 11 as beingentered from the stand-by state 1199; a state where no other operationsare in process. However, such an operation could be entered fromvirtually any other state depicted in FIG. 11.

The invention as described above including the invitation administrationconsole of FIG. 5 may also be used to facilitate the creation ofcomposite teleports which may share a common sender, location of degreeof similarity of theme, topic, subject or description as may beindicated in, for example, metadata regarding a sender, location orobjects located at respective locations. Such a manipulation of groupsmay be initiated from the group and ungroup buttons among buttons 520 orthe like which invokes a interface screen or pop-up dialog box, apreferred form of which is illustrated in FIG. 6 (1125 of FIG. 11) toprovide criteria which may be applied to metadata of invitations toestablish groups. Criteria for grouping may be thus be changed at willand at any time, causing the existing groups to be selectivelyreconstituted or eliminated. Ungrouping may be performed on a selectedinvitation basis from the interface screen of FIG. 5, as well.

Such composite teleports as can be easily and conveniently establishedthrough the interface screen of FIG. 6 may be of particular utility inallowing a user or the system to group multiple locations or invitationsthereto within a single invitation and allowing them to be administeredas a group. For example, a plurality of separate locations related tosystem monitoring work can be segregated from other types of invitationsunder a single heading as a composite teleport and administered together(e.g. as a sub-list). This function is somewhat similar to groupingpriority of locations which are geographically proximate to each otheralluded to above, but forms a more cohesive grouping of teleports as asingle composite teleport which can be visited with only a singleteleportation. That is, composite teleports that contain more than onelocation can be visited based on priority or individually. For example,a composite teleport may contain six total invitations which includethree different locations. If the user chooses to teleport to thatcomposite list, the priority list would be checked and the teleportinvitations in that list would be accepted in order (e.g. first in,first out). Thus the composite teleport as provided by the presentinvention facilitates grouping and manipulating invitations from anadministration perspective such that a large number of invitations withcommon features (e.g. from the same issuer and location) can bemanipulated as a single invitation and avoids, for example, a need toscroll through possibly many pages to access or view, for example, theoldest or most recent among them. Another particularly convenientapplication of this perfecting feature of the invention is to form acomposite teleport based on invitations from particular friends whichcan then be accepted when all or a majority of those friends areavailable as may be determined visually from indicia provided on theinvitation administration console screen as described above andillustrated in FIG. 5 by colored indicia/icons and legends.

It should be noted that the invention and particularly the perfectingfeature of forming composite teleports has particular application inregard to, for example, a virtual data center that represents a realdata center in which various parts of the data center may be issuinginvitations to teleport. Thus, rather than distracting the user withnumerous invitations, the invitations may simply be collected under asingle composite teleport invitation. In such circumstances, theinvention provides a powerful invitation management tool for reducingthe effective number of invitations to be managed while effectivelyretaining them (e.g. without the necessity of rejecting any) whileallowing the user substantial convenience in organizing, segregating andestablishing priority (e.g. providing triage) for sites the user mayhave responsibility to oversee.

Conversely, teleports and composite teleports in particular, may besplit through the facilities and functionality provided by the inventionby providing automatic forwarding or designating an alternativerecipient if the primary designated recipient is unavailable in a simpleand expeditious manner through use of a forward teleport invitationinterface screen; a preferred form of which is illustrated in FIG. 7(1130 of FIG. 11). Splitting may be accomplished automatically throughuse of a policy table resident at the sender which supplies alternativerecipients, or at the recipient, either manually or under control oflogic 340 as may also be specified through use of the interface screenof FIG. 7.

Another perfecting feature of the invention not necessary to itssuccessful practice in accordance with its basic principles is afacility for specifying new rules, particularly where the user isnotified through display of the notification of FIG. 4B that theinvitation does not match a currently existing prioritization rule. Thedefer button (button 2) in either of FIG. 4A or 4B invokes an “add newteleport priority” interface screen such as that of FIG. 8 (1110 of FIG.11, alluded to above). This screen provides a convenient format toinform the user of the criteria on which prioritization may be based andis not limited to those explicitly illustrated, as indicated byinclusion of menu controls which also provide substantial userconvenience.

An additional perfecting feature deemed to be within the scope of thepresent invention is the transmission of invitation queue informationoutside the VU as depicted at 1135 of FIG. 11. For example, when a userlogs off the VU with invitations in the queue, the invitations may besent as text messages to the e-mail service on the same processor oreven transmitted to a remote terminal such as a wireless personaldigital assistant (PDA) or other wireless messaging device. Suchmessages may contain textual information associated with each invitationsuch as the name of the sender and the time sent and may optionallycontain hyperlinks to information which may be accessed other thanthrough the VU.

Yet another perfecting feature of the invention which may be invokedfrom either of the screens of FIG. 4A or 4B is the creation of alandmark from an invitation. This function is preferably facilitated byprovision of a landmark administration console such as that depicted inFIG. 9. Such a console may be provided in known VU systems in whichlandmarks can be established or specified at will. However, theinvention provides for this function to be invoked after the user hasbeen informed of the existence or non-existence of prioritization rulesand in a manner entirely consistent with the other interface facilitiesin accordance with the invention and vice-versa.

User-defined defaults which will be embodied in the prioritization rules340 are preferably entered into the invention by a facility such as thatprovided by a teleport administration console such as that depicted inFIG. 10 (1150 of FIG. 11). The upper portion of the interface screenallows the user to establish certain desired treatments of teleportinvitations upon arrival. The first of these options fully invoke theprioritization functionality of the invention described above to provideat least temporary deferral of all invitations including the capabilityof selectively accepting or rejecting them automatically based onestablished rules 340 or in accordance with the treatment instructionssolicited from the user beginning with FIG. 4B as discussed above.Otherwise, the user may establish that all invitations should beaccepted, rejected, forwarded or landmarked upon arrival. A substantialdegree of selectivity may also be provided through menus and controlboxes in regard to a default priority to be assigned, the user(s) fromwhom invitations are to be accorded that priority and the medium ofnotification (e.g. audible or visual notifications in regard toparticular metadata of invitations). The lower portion of the interfacescreen allows for setting of relative priority between systempreferences and manual default settings and the development of lists ofcriteria embodied in respective ones of rules 340. The order of priorityfor each list can be edited from a partial listing of invitations to beaccepted (accepted list) through on-screen button 1010 or the like.

In view of the foregoing, it is seen that the invention provides asystem which can enhance the VU experience of a user by greatly reducingdistraction due to notifications of teleportation invitations whileallowing deferral of responses thereto and providing and facilitatingmanagement of invitations. A preliminary prioritization of invitationsmay be automatically provided at the will of the user and which can bemanually refined at the convenience of the user. Flexibility andadditional functionality of the important VU function of issuing andresponding to teleportation invitations is thus achieved.

While shown and described herein as a method and a system, it isunderstood that the invention further provides various alternativeembodiments. For example, in one embodiment shown in FIG. 12, theinvention provides a computer-readable/useable medium 22B that includescomputer program code to enable a computer infrastructure toautomatically manage teleportation movements between locations invirtual environments while determining suitability of requesteddestinations. To this extent, the computer-readable/useable mediumincludes program code that implements each of the various process stepsof the invention.

It is understood that the terms computer-readable medium or computeruseable medium comprise one or more of any type of physical embodimentof the program code. In particular, the computer-readable/useable mediumcan comprise program code embodied on one or more portable storagearticles of manufacture (e.g., a compact disc, a magnetic disk, a tape,etc., collectively depicted at 32), or on one or more data storageportions of a computing device, such as the memory 22A and/or thestorage system 22B (e.g., a fixed disk, a read-only memory, a randomaccess memory, a cache memory, etc.), and/or as a data signal 34 (e.g.,a propagated signal) traveling over a network 105 as depicted in FIG. 1(e.g., during a wired/wireless electronic distribution of the programcode).

Still yet, computer infrastructure 10 is intended to demonstrate thatsome or all of the components of implementation could be deployed,managed, serviced, etc. by a service provider who offers to implement,deploy, and/or perform the functions of the present invention forautomatically managing teleportation movements between locations invirtual environments while determining suitability of requesteddestinations, for example by licensing methods and browser orapplication server technology according to the present invention to aninternet service providers (ISP) or cellular telephone provider. In oneembodiment the invention may comprise a business method that performsthe process steps of the invention on a subscription, advertising,and/or fee basis. Thus a service provider can create, maintain, support,etc., a computer infrastructure 12 including computing device 14, suchas the computer infrastructure 10 that performs the process steps of theinvention for automatically manage teleportation movements betweenlocations in virtual environments while determining suitability ofrequested destinations, and in return the service provider can receivepayment from the customer(s) under a subscription and/or fee agreementand/or the service provider can receive payment from the sale ofadvertising content to one or more third parties.

As used herein, it is understood that the terms “program code” and“computer program code” are synonymous and mean any expression, in anylanguage, code or notation, of an application 30 comprising a set ofinstructions including program control 44 intended to cause a computingdevice 20 having an information processing capability to perform aparticular function either directly or after either or both of thefollowing: (a) conversion to another language, code or notation; and/or(b) reproduction in a different material form. To this extent, programcode can be embodied as one or more of: an application/software program,component software/a library of functions, an operating system, a basicI/O system/driver 24 for a particular computing and/or I/O device 28,and the like.

The foregoing description of various aspects of the invention has beenpresented for purposes of illustration and description. It is notintended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise formdisclosed, and obviously, many modifications and variations arepossible. Such modifications and variations that may be apparent to aperson skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scopeof the invention as defined by the accompanying claims.

While the invention has been described in terms of a single preferredembodiment, those skilled in the art will recognize that the inventioncan be practiced with modification within the spirit and scope of theappended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of managing teleportation invitations ina virtual universe, said virtual universe being a computer-basedsimulated environment having locations therein intended for users toinhabit and interact through the use of avatars and within and betweenwhich an avatar can move by teleportation, said method comprising:logically analyzing, by computer, incoming teleportation invitations onthe basis of at least the sender and proposed teleportation location;responsive to results of said logically analyzing step, automaticallyperforming for each teleportation invitation one of: accepting theteleportation invitation for teleporting in accordance with saidteleportation invitation, rejecting the teleportation invitation, anddeferring response to the teleportation invitation by placing theteleportation invitation in a queue at a queue location having apriority for possible acceptance within said queue based on saidlogically analyzing step, wherein one or more of the incomingteleportation invitations are deferred and placed in said queue; andteleporting the avatar of a user to the proposed teleportation locationof at least one deferred teleportation invitation in said queue, saidproposed teleportation location being a geographical location within thetopology of a virtual universe, wherein avatars are graphicalrepresentations for traversing and interacting within one or morevirtual universes.
 2. The method as recited in claim 1 wherein saidlogically analyzing step is performed based on rules in regard tometadata corresponding to at least an issuer of the invitation and adestination of the teleportation invitation.
 3. The method as recited inclaim 2 wherein said rules are created based on metadata in ateleportation invitation.
 4. The method as recited in claim 3 wherein arule specifies how a user is alerted to receipt of a teleportationinvitation.
 5. The method as recited in claim 1, wherein a landmark isselectively created in response to results of said logically analyzingstep or by user manipulation of said queue.
 6. The method as recited inclaim 1, further including altering order of teleportation invitationsor controlling grouping of teleportation invitations in said queue by auser.
 7. The method as recited in claim 1, further including indicatingavailability status of issuers of respective teleportation invitationsin said queue.
 8. A computer program product comprising a computerreadable medium storing non-transitory signals comprising a computerprogram, said computer program, when run on a computer hosting a virtualuniverse, said virtual universe being a computer-based simulatedenvironment having locations therein intended for users to inhabit andinteract through the use of avatars and within or between which anavatar can move by teleportation, causing said computer to perform:logically analyzing, using said computer, incoming teleportationinvitations on the basis of at least the sender and proposedteleportation location; responsive to results of said logicallyanalyzing step, automatically performing for each teleportationinvitation one of: accepting the teleportation invitation forteleporting in accordance with said teleportation invitation, rejectingthe teleportation invitation, and deferring response to theteleportation invitation by placing the teleportation invitation in aqueue at a queue location having a priority for possible acceptancewithin said queue based on said logically analyzing step, wherein one ormore of the incoming teleportation invitations are deferred and placedin said queue; and teleporting the avatar of a user to the proposedteleportation location of at least one deferred teleportation invitationin said queue, said proposed teleportation location being a geographicallocation within the topology of a virtual universe, wherein avatars aregraphical representations for traversing and interacting within one ormore virtual universes.
 9. The computer program product as recited inclaim 8 wherein said logically analyzing step is performed based onrules in regard to metadata corresponding to at least an issuer of theteleportation invitation and a destination of the teleportationinvitation.
 10. The computer program product as recited in claim 9wherein said rules are created based on metadata in a teleportationinvitation.
 11. The computer program product as recited in claim 10wherein a rule specifies how a user is alerted to receipt of ateleportation invitation.
 12. The computer program product as recited inclaim 8, wherein a landmark is selectively created in response toresults of said logically analyzing step or by user manipulation of saidqueue.
 13. The computer program product as recited in claim 8, whereinsaid program further causes the computer to perform: altering order ofteleportation invitations or controlling grouping of teleportationinvitations in said queue by a user.
 14. The computer program product asrecited in claim 8, wherein said program causes the computer to performthe further step of indicating status of issuers of respectiveteleportation invitations in said queue.
 15. A virtual universe system,said virtual universe system providing a virtual universe to usersthereof, said virtual universe being a computer-based simulatedenvironment having locations therein intended for users to inhabit andinteract through the use of avatars and within or between which anavatar can move by teleportation, said virtual universe system includingcomparison means to compare, by computer, metadata in a teleportationinvitation to a plurality of rules, storage for containing a queue ofsaid teleportation invitations which are neither automatically acceptednor rejected based on said rules in a controllable priority order forpossible acceptance, means for storing a teleportation invitation insaid queue with a priority determined in accordance with a rule of saidplurality of rules, means for manipulating said priority order ofteleportation invitations stored in said queue, accepting ateleportation invitation stored in said queue or rejecting ateleportation invitation stored in said queue whereby a response to ateleportation invitation may be deferred, and means for teleporting theavatar of a user to a proposed teleportation location of at least onedeferred teleportation invitation in said queue, said proposedteleportation location being a geographical location within the topologyof said virtual universe, wherein avatars are graphical representationsfor traversing and interacting within said virtual universe.
 16. Thevirtual universe system as recited in claim 15, wherein a rule of saidplurality of rules specifies how a user is notified of receipt of ateleportation invitation.
 17. A method of advertising using a virtualuniverse system, said virtual universe system providing a virtualuniverse to users thereof, said virtual universe being a computer-basedsimulated environment having locations therein intended for users toinhabit and interact through the use of avatars and within or betweenwhich an avatar can move by teleportation including logically analyzing,using a computer, a teleportation invitation in accordance with a rule;deferring response to said teleportation invitation by storing saidteleportation invitation which is neither automatically accepted norautomatically rejected in accordance with a rule in a queue with apriority for possible acceptance specified in said rule from saidvirtual universe system and independently of a user; and teleporting theavatar of a user to a proposed teleportation location of at least onedeferred teleportation invitation in said queue, said proposedteleportation location being a geographical location within the topologyof said virtual universe, wherein avatars are graphical representationsfor traversing and interacting within said virtual universe.
 18. Amethod of operating a virtual universe (VU) system on a plurality ofnetworked data processors, said virtual universe system providing avirtual universe to a user thereof, said virtual universe being acomputer-based simulated environment having locations therein intendedfor users to inhabit and interact through the use of avatars and withinor between which an avatar can move by teleportation, said methodcomprising configuring at least one data processor of said plurality ofdata processors to provide comparison means to compare, using said atleast one processor, metadata in a teleportation invitation to aplurality of rules, storage for containing a queue of said teleportationinvitations, means for storing a teleportation invitation which isneither automatically accepted nor automatically rejected in accordancewith said rule in said queue with a priority for possible acceptancedetermined in accordance with a rule of said plurality of rules, meansfor manipulating said priority of teleportation invitations stored insaid queue, accepting a teleportation invitation stored in said queueand teleporting in accordance with said teleportation invitation orrejecting a teleportation invitation stored in said queue whereby aresponse to a teleportation invitation may be deferred, and means forteleporting the avatar of a user to a proposed teleportation location ofat least one deferred teleportation invitation in said queue, saidproposed teleportation location being a geographical location within thetopology of said virtual universe, wherein avatars are graphicalrepresentations for traversing and interacting within said virtualuniverse.
 19. A virtual universe system, said virtual universe systemproviding a virtual universe to users thereof, said virtual universebeing a computer-based simulated environment having locations thereinintended for users to inhabit and interact through the use of avatarsand within or between which an avatar can move by teleportation, saidvirtual universe system including comparison means to compare metadatain a teleportation invitation to a plurality of rules, storage forcontaining a queue of said teleportation invitations in a controllablepriority order for possible acceptance, means for storing ateleportation invitation in said queue with a priority determined inaccordance with a rule of said plurality of rules, means formanipulating said priority order of teleportation invitations stored insaid queue, accepting a teleportation invitation stored in said queue orrejecting a teleportation invitation stored in said queue whereby aresponse to a teleportation invitation may be deferred, and pollingmeans for determining status of issuers of respective teleportationinvitations in said queue and displaying said status to a user.
 20. Avirtual universe system, said virtual universe system providing avirtual universe to users thereof, said virtual universe being acomputer-based simulated environment having locations therein intendedfor users to inhabit and interact through the use of avatars and withinor between which an avatar can move by teleportation, said virtualuniverse system including comparison means to compare metadata in ateleportation invitation to a plurality of rules, storage for containinga queue of said teleportation invitations in a controllable priorityorder for possible acceptance, means for storing a teleportationinvitation in said queue with a priority determined in accordance with arule of said plurality of rules, means for manipulating said priorityorder of teleportation invitations stored in said queue, accepting ateleportation invitation stored in said queue or rejecting ateleportation invitation stored in said queue whereby a response to ateleportation invitation may be deferred, and means for converting ateleportation invitation to form a rule of said plurality of rules. 21.A virtual universe system, said virtual universe system providing avirtual universe to users thereof, said virtual universe being acomputer-based simulated environment having locations therein intendedfor users to inhabit and interact through the use of avatars and withinor between which an avatar can move by teleportation, said virtualuniverse system including comparison means to compare metadata in ateleportation invitation to a plurality of rules, storage for containinga queue of said teleportation invitations in a controllable priorityorder for possible acceptance, means for storing a teleportationinvitation in said queue with a priority determined in accordance with arule of said plurality of rules, and means for manipulating saidpriority order of teleportation invitations stored in said queue,accepting a teleportation invitation stored in said queue or rejecting ateleportation invitation stored in said queue whereby a response to ateleportation invitation may be deferred, wherein a rule of saidplurality of rules is specified from said virtual universe systemindependently of user action.